


sea salt

by tigriswolf



Series: poetry [91]
Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 04:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12291105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: Warmth comes with the light,drying the salt from her skinuntil the sea is only in hersweat and tears.





	sea salt

**Author's Note:**

> Title: sea salt  
> Fandom: The Little Mermaid  
> Written: April-May 2010
> 
> This was apparently never posted here?
> 
> Also, I can't believe I wrote this over seven years ago.

Warmth comes with the light,  
drying the salt from her skin  
until the sea is only in her  
sweat and tears.  
With her steps on the harsh ground,  
so little soft on land,  
things are hard and cold—  
but the fire and the sun  
and the cloth her prince’s servants drape on her.  
Baths hurt, being so close yet so far from home,  
and dusk brings warnings from the witch:  
time passing but no yes, no kiss, no marriage.  
Why is she here,  
a daughter of the sea on dirt?  
Storms harass the coast, her family’s lament,  
and she stands on trembling legs,  
singing the waters to calm.  
Her sisters know the ending looms  
and yet no kiss,  
an ocean in her sweat and her tears  
as the prince she loves weds another.  
He doesn’t know because the sea’s daughter cannot speak  
and the blade is cold in her hands,  
her sisters’ song loud in her heart,  
her survival dependent on his demise.  
The moon is her mother and the hurricane her father,  
and no, she will not hurt the man she loves.  
She leaves, knife falling from shaking fingers,  
and the water embraces her for a single moment,  
and her sisters scream,  
and her mother weeps,  
and her father rages,  
but the prince doesn’t know  
and the young woman who loved him,  
who smiled so beautifully and laughed so silently,  
who looked at everything with wonder,  
who watched him with adoring eyes—  
she is gone forever to pay the witch,  
her life for her love,  
forever in the ocean now,  
ever part of the waves as sea foam.


End file.
